Crash

BH and I both now have the Plantronics ear bud. Nice ear piece that just fits in your ear without a little loopy thing that goes around your ear. (there's gotta be a name for that) It stays in your ear just fine although at first you think it wouldn't. I've never had it just fall out. Yet. It does have one little quirk. If you have the ear piece on you cannot talk on your phone (without the piece) you must use the ear piece to talk or turn the piece off or disconnect from your phone. I cannot tell you how many times BH has answered his phone only to realize that the ear piece is on his desk, turned on.

Tuesday we left work together, as we usually do. We drive separate cars to work as we do most days. It was dark when we left and it was the peak of going home traffic. BH exits our strip center and turns left onto the two lane street without signal assistance. This is fine unless it's rush hour or school times. I rarely (never) exit that way, especially in the dark. Instead I slip out the side of the center, make a left (which is illegal and I have to watch for cops) and then turn left at the light. Most times I can get into the flow and get ahead of BH. This day I could not turn left on that little street. There was so much traffic that I decided to keep going right and make a giant retarded U turn to get home. It will cost me a lot more time and I know BH will make it home 2-3 minutes before me causing him to call me to find out where the heck I am. We only use surface streets and there are a couple of bottle necks on our way home. One bottle neck is four corners, I know you don't know where that is but when we first moved to LE it was the only signal in town. It gets quite busy and I always get a little nervous going through it.

The second bottle neck especially at this time of night is between the cemetery where there are only 2 lanes and then it widens into 4 and then 6 lanes. The Home Depot, Walgreens etc are to the left and the Target center is to the right. The main flow is the two left turn lanes headed towards the freeway. For some odd reason during peak times that stupid left turn light only lets 4-6 cars through causing us all to sit in those lanes for EVAH. Us local yokels have figured out how to maneuver this intersection but unless you're in a big freaken hurry you just wait it out. And I'm coming into this area and the line is stopped and I'm seeing a police car all lit up in the middle of the road, facing me. An accident, that'll really screw up prime time traffic. I see three cars in a crunch as I skirt to the right, one looks totaled but I see people walking around so I suspect they'll not be seriously injured. As I turn into the Target center (zip through the center and catch the light on the other end) I see another knot of cars. Four or five of them fused together. I have to dodge 3 more cars before I can turn into Target. I know BH is ahead of me and wonder why he hasn't warned me of this event. I wonder if he's in there, in that knot of cars. It's dark, his car is dark as are 3 of the cars in this bunch. I can't tell if he's there. Then I get a call. Yep, it's BH going to warn me of this accident. I answer the call but can't hear him. It's his dang ear piece, perhaps it's fallen in his lap or between the seats. I hang up and call him back. It's answered but I still can't hear him. I listen carefully and I hear him? someone? saying 'do you have your insurance papers?' By now I'm through the intersection and past the freeway. There is no legal way to make a U turn but I do, even in all this traffic, with cops all around and by the sounds of it, more coming.

I now know exactly where I'm going. I pull into the Walgreens parking lot and park right in front of the intersection facing this bundle of metal and glass. And there in the middle of all this mess is BH. Walking around and looking fine! Thank God he's alright!

Here's what I know so far. Large yellow Suburban (LYS) is headed toward the intersection, towards these two left turn lanes. He hits a car and totals the car in front of that car (and possibly another car there) he then careens to the right, towards Target, and hits 2 or 3 more cars that are waiting to turn into Target (or avoiding the long wait) he then flips around, as in U turns BACK into traffic and nails BH and pushes BH into the car to the left of him. LYS also crunches into a car to his right and 2 more cars are lightly munched as a result. The car even after impacting BH continues to accelerate, BH said he thought the car would climb right over him. It doesn't, it finally stops accelerating but now there is much smoke and BH's cab is filling up fast. He fears there will be a fire and his door is jammed, he can't open it. The windows are all blown out and he wiggles and jiggles until he gets the door open.

LYS driver is youngish, maybe in his 30's. Long dark hair. Long, down to his waist. His left arm extends just past the elbow. He has no left hand. He is very very thin. The LYS is old, 70's maybe. It doesn't appear as damaged as some of the cars he's hit. I wonder if it'll be repairable. It looks as if all the other cars I've seen will be totaled.

There is glass all over. Most of it from BH. Glass all over the seats. I know the car will be towed and totaled so I go about getting all the personal belongings out. I first look for his ear piece. It's not on the seats, behind the seats, under the seats. The crunch caused the dash board to explode, sort of. The airbag did not deploy but the glove box popped open and the dash is either on the floor, out the door or otherwise just hanging by small wires. A fireman sees my attempts to clear the car and flashes a light in my eyes. 'What are you doing?' he says. 'Looking for his ear piece' I say. 'What's it look like?' he says. I ignore him, he has more important things to do than look for this ear piece I would think. He goes away. I finally find the ear piece. It's on top of the dash. The impact caused it to fly out of his ear to the top left of his dash. I'm surprised it didn't go out the window. The window that is now all over the road.

I pull his briefcase out of the door that is tweaked and hard to open. The darn briefcase weighs about as much as I do but I wrestle it out and run it across the street to my car. We clean out the glove box, the center divider compartment and the tools that are always in the back. He leaves a box of oil. 'I'll get it later' BH says. 'No, you may never see this car again. If you want it, get it now.' He leaves it. I know he'll want to see his car. One last time.

Wednesday morning, he is sore. His left leg is quite sore and he is limping. We think it's from the steering wheel. Left arm is also sore. I don't see any bruising at this time. I want him to get checked out, just in case. He wont.

And are there any pictures, you ask? Well no, no there isn't. Because my camera is on my desk. At work. Because I loaded meatball pictures on to my computer. Meatball pictures for my blog. Cuz THAT'S important.

I did take one camera pic but it was so dark I doubt it came out.

OH WAIT! WAIT!! I almost forgot! It's delurker day!!

DO IT! Or I'll be forced to show you my privates!